


Coming to Terms with Shakespeare

by RembrandtsWife



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Chocolate, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, Poetry, Pre-Slash, References to Shakespeare, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 01:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9633281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: Shakespeare is the obstacle in the road. Nursey believes the obstacle is the path. Dex watched some of The Hollow Crown.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "single and bitter is better together". Check, Please! is created by Ngozi Ukazu, to whom I am exceedingly grateful.

Dex hated to admit it, but he could have hooked up with somebody tonight, and he didn't. There were lots of available girls at the kegster--there always were, since Ransom seemed to know the entire population of Samwell, faculty, staff, and students--and he was pretty sure more than one or two of them had been interested in him. And normally he would have been interested, too, but--

It was Valentine's Day. And dammit, Valentine's Day was not about hooking up and getting off. It was about romance. And he hated to admit it, but he was enough of a romantic not to want to get laid on Valentine's Day if it wasn't with a romantic partner.

And, well, besides, he'd looked for Nurse at the kegster, and he hadn't seen him. And Chow was there but with Farmer, making goo-goo eyes at each other on the dance floor. When Shitty started trying to teach Bittle how to tango, Dex had bailed.

It was probably a bad idea to stop by Nurse's dorm room. He probably either had a date there or else he was somewhere else with a date and one or more of his roommates were there with dates. It was probably totally unnecessary to stop by and check on him and Dex hunched his shoulders and jammed his hands into his pockets and knew he was going to do it anyway.

Nurse's hallway was weirdly quiet. Dex rapped on the door and tried not to hunch up any more.

"Dex? What's going on?"

Nurse leaned in the doorway, chewing on something, giving Dex that annoying "I'm so fucking chill" look through his lowered lashes. 

"Nothing," Dex said, hunching further and then forcing himself to straighten up. "I just--didn't see you at the Haus kegster and--never mind." He turned to walk away, but Nurse caught his shoulder.

"Nah, bro, it's chill." Nurse stepped backward into his room, opening the door wider. "I just wanted to Skype with my mom and dad tonight because it's my birthday."

"Oh." Dex shuffled into the room after Nurse, who flung himself easily onto his bed. On the nightstand beside it were an assortment of cards, all of which looked red and white and hearts and flowery, and a substantial heart-shaped box of candy.

"It's kind of a joke with my family that they give me cards and stuff that are Valentine's themed. Hey, have some candy if you want."

Dex helped himself to a few pieces from the fancy red box and perched at the foot of Nurse's bed, crossing his legs. The first piece of chocolate turned out to be a caramel, so he didn't say anything for a couple minutes.

Nurse grabbed a piece of candy and then a book of poetry that he made notes in, humming under his breath in spite of the candy he was chewing. Dex licked his lips and swallowed hard, trying hard not to watch Nurse's lips move around the chocolate.

"So if you were at the kegster," Nurse said, before Dex could speak, "how come you didn't hook up with anybody?"

Dex bristled. "What makes you think I didn't?"

Nurse snorted and snagged another piece of chocolate. "For one thing, you're sitting here on my bed when it's not even midnight yet, and for another, whenever somebody says 'What makes you think I didn't?", they didn't."

Dex bit into another chocolate. Ugh, cherry-filled. He wondered if Nurse had any facial tissues handy. "Valentine's Day is for romance. Just hooking up so you're not alone on the day is for losers."

"Most people would say you're a loser if you *are* alone on Valentine's Day." Nurse eyeballed Dex over his book and made a note in pencil. "And everybody else would say it's a made-up holiday anyway."

Dex rolled his eyes. "Oh, Christ, we already had the speech about Lupercalia and fuck-what from Shitty." To his surprise, that made Nurse laugh out loud. 

"Ch'yeah, I bet you did! Damn, I'm almost sorry I missed that." He picked up the box of chocolates and shook it at Dex. "You want another one?"

"Nah, thanks, I've had too much to drink to put a lot of sugar on top of it. Have you got--" Nurse handed him a tissue. "Oh, thanks."

He dumped the ruined bonbon into the tissue, rolled it up, and pitched it at the trash can Nurse held up. He was struck, not for the first time, by how well he and Nurse worked together, considering how much they argued most of the time.

"Studying for a class?" He wished he had a drink of water.

"Yes and no. Taking a hard look at Shakespeare's sonnets, trying to pick one for a critique. Trying to make friends with Willie Shakes'. You can't write in the English language without coming to terms with him."

Dex's total exposure to Shakespeare consisted of having watched parts of The Hollow Crown on BBC America with his sisters. He figured he'd seen enough, but then, he wasn't an English major.

"Do you... not like Shakespeare?" Well that came out sounding fucking awkward.

"It's not about liking him, bro, or disliking him. He's just there, like a fucking mountain. And he's not this, like, sublime poet drifting through the countryside, watching the sheep and the clouds and saying lofty metaphysical things." Nurse was sitting up now, gesturing with his pencil. "He's this gritty entertainer with a bad rep who put gross physical humor in his plays and wrote poems about sexual obsession with both men and women. Yet at the same time he's a profound thinker, he has a deep insight into human nature. He sees the tarnish on us but polishes it to a shine."

Nurse broke off, looking vaguely embarrassed. Dex blinked at him. "You really care about this shit. It's like life or death or something."

"Yeah." Nurse ran a hand through his springy hair. Well, it's not life or death, but I do care. What we say, how we say it, what we make art about and how we make it and who gets to make art and who doesn't--that's what it's all about, man. Art can change the world. Shakespeare did."

Pondering, Dex reached slowly for another chocolate. "Write me a poem about that. Write me a poem about Shakespeare."

**Author's Note:**

> I am [rembrandtswife](rembrandtswife.tumblr.com) on Tumblr, and [samwellalumna](samwellalumna.tumblr.com) is my CP sideblog.


End file.
